Officer Robbed Suspects, U.S. Says

A Los Angeles police officer who was arrested last week on charges of trying to buy 10 kilograms of cocaine has been using his position at the LAPD to rob suspects of drugs and money for at least two years, a federal prosecutor charged in court Thursday.

LAPD Officer Ruben Palomares, 31, and four other men allegedly bought the 10 kilograms of cocaine as part of a more ambitious scheme to steal 50 kilograms from the drug supplier in the future, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Randy Jones.

“This was a prelude to a larger drug rip-off,” Jones said.

The allegations against Palomares remain unproved, but the hearing Thursday represented the latest in a growing series of criminal charges against members of the LAPD, many of them, including Palomares, connected to the department’s Rampart Division. Palomares’ lawyer accused prosecutors of invoking Rampart to smear the officer, and other defense attorneys at Thursday’s hearing said prosecution characterizations of their clients were inaccurate as well.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks declined to comment on the charges against the officer and on any connection they might have to the LAPD’s own investigation of him.

In court, the prosecutor said Palomares attempted to use his LAPD badge to talk his way out of the alleged crime when he was arrested June 8 in Chula Vista.

“He said he was an LAPD officer on an undercover operation,” Jones said. Palomares later recanted, admitting he was not on duty, the prosecutor said. The officer then said it was the first time he had been involved in a drug transaction, Jones alleged.

Prosecutors contend otherwise.

At a hearing in federal court in which Jones successfully argued that Palomares should be held without bail, he said the officer provided half of the $130,000 to buy the 10 kilos of cocaine.

During a consensual search of Palomares’ Diamond Bar home, agents seized 13 firearms--including six unregistered semiautomatic assault rifles, 150 boxes of ammunition, and a money counting machine, which Jones said were common tools of drug traffickers. Agents also found a statue near Palomares’ swimming pool that was equipped with a secret compartment, Jones said. The statue’s compartment was empty, the prosecutor said.

According to Jones, Palomares used informants whom he encountered during his job as a police officer to identify drug dealers. Then, Jones alleged, Palomares would rob the dealers of their drugs and money.

Jones offered little evidence to back his charges during the two-hour hearing to determine whether the defendants were entitled to post bail. That was a point Palomares’ attorney seized on outside the courtroom.

“All this drug kingpin rip-off stuff is brand new to the case,” said attorney Robert Rico. “I think they are trying to piggy-back on the Rampart scandal to make my client the monster he is not.”

The government’s allegations against Palomares in the current case are strikingly reminiscent of the now-admitted exploits of Rafael Perez, the ex-LAPD officer who cut a deal on his own drug charges and launched what has become known as the Rampart corruption scandal.

In fact, Perez implicated Palomares and another officer in an allegedly unjustified shooting of a reputed drug dealer in 1998. LAPD and FBI officials say they are investigating Palomares in connection with that shooting, but the officer has never been charged with wrongdoing in that case.

Palomares--clad in an orange, jail-issue jumpsuit--sat with his hands in his lap and did not speak during the hearing. Rico said his client is a father of five, whose woman companion is also an LAPD officer.

Charged along with Palomares are Dennis Garcia, Jose Juan Garcia, Gabriel Loaiza and Alvin Moon. As Jones argued before Magistrate Judge Anthony J. Battaglia that each man should be held without bail, he laid out their alleged roles in the 10-kilo drug deal.

Dennis Garcia, who spent seven years in prison for dealing a pound of cocaine in Hawaii, was the man “who kind of got the ball rolling,” Jones alleged.

Dennis Garcia recruited Jose Garcia--it was not clear if the men are related--as one of the money men to buy the drugs, the prosecutor said. Jose Garcia allegedly boasted about being “a major player in the drug trafficking trade,” with connections in Oakland and Chicago. His statements were allegedly captured on videotape as he met with undercover agents aboard a boat in San Diego.

Loaiza, Jones said, was Palomares’ “right-hand man,” a wannabe police officer who was the only defendant who declined to make a post-arrest statement.

“There’ll be no snitches,” Jones quoted the defendant as having earlier warned his alleged partners. Loaiza was allegedly in the car with Dennis Garcia and Palomares when they arrived in Chula Vista to pick up the drugs. He allegedly sat on a park bench “conducting counter-surveillance” as the deal went down, according to DEA agents.

The prosecutor said Loaiza has pending job applications with several police departments.

“He wanted to become a police officer so he could get a badge [and] do the types of rip-offs Mr. Palomares was doing,” Jones said.

Jones said Moon, the driver of one of the cars in the alleged drug deal, recklessly attempted to elude DEA agents and police during a brief chase through the streets of Chula Vista.

Defense attorneys for the men painted markedly different pictures of their clients.

Paul Neuharth said Dennis Garcia, 45, was employed in the home construction business and had made an earnest effort to stay out of trouble since his release from prison.

Jose Garcia, according to attorney Barry Hammond, is a real estate broker whose criminal background consisted only of minor brushes with the law.

Loaiza, according to Rico, who stood in for attorney Ira Salzman, is a licensed security guard who has lived in Montebello for 25 years. “He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rico said.

And Moon is a 25-year-old student at Pasadena City College who works at this parent’s dry-cleaning business, said his lawyer, Jeremy D. Warren. Warren said Moon cooperated by making a full statement. “It appears Mr. Moon was recruited only as a driver.”

In the end, Battaglia--who was not asked to consider the guilt or innocence of the defendants before him but merely to decide whether they could make bail--agreed with the government’s arguments that each of the men either represented a flight risk or was a danger to the community, or both, and ordered them held without bail.

What remained unclear after the court hearing was how each of the defendants knew one another.

In an interview with The Times, Loaiza’s father said his son and Palomares grew up and went to school together in East Los Angeles. But then the Palomares family moved away in the late 1980s or early 1990s and the family later learned that Ruben Palomares had become a police officer.

Moon, said prosecutor Jones, “has known Mr. Palomares for some time.” He did not elaborate.

*

Times staff writer Geoffrey Mohan contributed to this story.